


First Meeting; Second City

by Assassin_J



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Assassins and Templars are still a thing, Chicago, First Meeting, Lyft, M/M, One-Shot, Pre-Slash, Some sort of AU, all my faves are bi, sorry I'm bad at endings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-08-07 15:33:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7720216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Assassin_J/pseuds/Assassin_J
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU where Clay is a Lyft driver and that’s how he and Desmond meet</p><p>(Chicago is nicknamed "the second city" due to being rebuilt after the fire)</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Meeting; Second City

Clay had been idling at a stop sign on South Federal for a mere second when some dude threw himself at the car, banging at the window.

"It's open!" Clay called, an automatic response born from habit, since the passenger door lock hadn't worked for a long time.

The man- tall, tan, and frantic- bolted into Clay's car and immediately impelled him to "Go!"

"Go where?"

"Anywhere- away from here," the man panted breathlessly.

"S'your dime," Clay muttered under his breath, pulling out into the street and heading east.

The man looked absolutely stricken suddenly. "Not that way, I just came from there!"

"Fine, I gotcha." Clay turned north onto Dearborn. _Shoulda been more specific then, asshole._

"Can we go faster?" The man put his hood up, over his dark, close-shorn hair. "I mean, not so fast it draws attention, but-"

"Y'know usually people request rides through the app," Clay cut in.

This threw the man off. "Huh?" (You'd almost think he didn't even know what an app was.)

"Lyft. I drive for Lyft." Clay tapped his phone in its dashboard holster. The app was open right now actually, displaying the tictactoe map of downtown Chicago.

The man's eyes- hazel, Clay noted for some reason- jitterbugged between the phone screen and the rearview mirror. "C-can you disable your GPS for a bit? I uh, I get paranoid, heh!" The laugh was obviously forced.

Clay was not about to do that without cause. This guy was a little bit too shifty. "What'd you do, kid?"

"Kid?" He puffed up indignantly. "I'm a grown-ass man, thank you very much!"

"Aright, aright, what'd you do, _man_ , that you're now on the run and paranoid?"

"I'm not a criminal, okay!" The man popped Clay's phone out of the holster and swipe-tapped a couple times, then deftly popped it back.

A notification blurped- _Please enable GPS for more accurate trip tracking_ \- and Clay sighed inaudibly. "Have it your way, pal." It wasn't like they would get lost or anything: Clay knew the city like the proverbial back of his hand. Probably better than, actually.

The man gave a nervous smile as thanks for the indulgence.

"So you're 'not a criminal'," Clay repeated the words back with only a smidge of skepticism. "What's the story, then? Why're you being chased?"

His smile faded into a solemn blankness, but with deep thoughts hiding in the hazel eyes. "I'm... part of something. A kinda underground cause." He glanced in the mirror again. "A cause with a lotta enemies."

"What sort of cause? Political?"

"Ye- well, no, not really." The man scratched his ear. "I mean, unless it's 'political' to be against kidnappings and mind control and other evil crap like that."

"Hm." _Mind control. Yeah, sure._ Clay turned onto Wacker and looked over the man again. He certainly didn't have the aura of your typical ranting nutjob. "This cause-group of yours have a name?"

"I, uh. It's sorta secret."

" _Sorta_ secret? Either it's secret or it's not, right? And it's gotta have a name, either way."

"Okay, okay..." the man glanced around looking in every mirror again- "...Let's call it the Brotherhood."

"Brotherhood, huh?"

"Yeah, kinda dorky right?"

Clay shrugged. "'Dorky' has a certain charm about it sometimes."

The man laughed softly. It was a warm sound, and one that seemed like it hadn't been used in a while.

Clay kinda liked the guy's laugh; it made him seem a lot less shifty, a lot more relatable. "I'm taking us across the river; that okay?"

The man nodded. "I think we shook 'em off by now, but uh, if you could drop me up by the zoo?"

"Sure. Traffic's a little tight, but I don't suppose you're in a time crunch."

"Nah. Already done all my work stuff for the day." He laughed again.

"My parents used to take me to the zoo," Clay offered, apropos of nothing, as they traversed DuSable Bridge.

"Good times," the man said.

"Good enough. Wasn't my favorite. My favorite's the planetarium." Clay jerked a thumb back behind them in its general direction. "Head-in-the-clouds, Dad always said I was."

The man was gazing up at the tall towers on either side of the street. "I never got to do any stuff like that. Pretty shut-in childhood." He suppressed a sigh.

"Now you're a grown-ass man, though, you can travel the world!" Clay cackled.

"Yeah, I'd like to. But I can't really."

"Oh. Too busy with that cause thing?"

The man rested his head back and closed his eyes. "Yeah, exactly."

Clay acknowledged with a "Hm", and then drove on in silence through the chock-a-block traffic.

The tan man's tension seemed to radiate and fill the car's interior.

To ease the mood a little, Clay flicked through radio stations, but nothing good was on.

So he tried another conversation. "Are you seeing anyone?"

"Buh?" The man's eyes flickered open and focused on him confusedly.

"Seeing; dating; forming a romantic bond with. Anyone?"

"I uh. No." The man scratched his head and looked down. "There was this one girl- but it didn't work out, and my dad wouldn't have approved anyway."

"Hey, your dad's not the king of the world. Who cares what your dad thinks?"

"Fuckin' right, yeah," the man muttered in agreement, like he'd been waiting his whole life for someone to voice this opinion.

"Well you know what _I_ think?" Clay leaned over close to him. " _I_ think you're kinda cute."

The man's face flushed, and he pulled his hood further forward.

"Hey, hey, don't be shy." Clay swished the hood back down. "It's true."

"Uh, okay." The man gave a little half-smile, and Clay noticed for the first time a faded scar running vertical down one side of his mouth.

"Bet there's a story behind that," he said, pointing to it.

The man shied away from his finger.

Inferring he didn't want to share that story right now, Clay pulled his hand back. "Anyway! We're approaching the zoo in a few. And I don't give out rides for free."

The man pulled a few wadded bills out from his hoodie. "Umm, is five-"

Clay chuckled and waved his hand. "Oh no, I don't wanna take your money. You keep it and put it toward the cause."

The man laughed. "Yeah, okay."

"Right. So. Here's the zoo, cutie." Clay pulled up to the curb. "For payment, I'll accept a kiss. Or your phone number," he added, in case that first bit was too forward.

The man's laugh choked short- he obviously hadn't been expecting this. "H- how-"

"How do I know you're bi?" Clay tapped his forehead. "I got a sixth sense about things sometimes."

"Sixth sense, huh?" The man smiled again, like they were sharing a sly joke together. "Right, okay; I think I _will_ give you my number." He popped the phone out of the holster again and added himself to the contact list.

Clay watched him hunt'n'peck the letters to key his name: D-E-S-M-O-N-D. "Desmond. Don't meet one of those every day."

"Yeah, I'm fuckin' one-in-a-million unique." He handed the phone back. "So, what's your name, head-in-the-clouds car man?"

"It's Clay."

"Right." Desmond unbuckled his seatbelt and turned toward him. "Now Clay, if anyone asks, please for the love of God- or whatever you believe in- do _not_ tell them you saw me, met me, gave me a ride, _anything_."

Clay raised an eyebrow. "If 'anyone' asks? You mean like whatever baddies you were bolting from downtown?"

Desmond nodded.

"Well hell, how do you know I'm not working for that anti-cause already?"

"...I have a sixth sense about some things too." And with that, he gave Clay one last smile before exiting the car and slipping seamlessly into the crowd.


End file.
